Susan Skoog says “Whatever”

Susan Skoog says "Whatever"

“Whatever,” a debut feature for writer/director Susan Skoog, is beingreleased by Sony Pictures Classics this Friday. Skoog has been awriter, director, and producer for several TV networks including MTV,VH-1, and TNT, and she made a short film called “A Dry Heat” that didthe festival circuit. Among her vast TV experience, Skoog has producedand directed several documentaries including “Inside the Academy Awards“and “Our Favorite Movies” and retrospectives on the work of RobertDeNiro and Martin Scorsese.

“Whatever” takes place in the early 80’s, where the Pretenders and DavidBowie blare on the radio and everyone’s up for a party. Joints arepassed, kegs are flowing, and everyone’s so wasted they’re eithergroping each other mindlessly or passing out in a corner. In the midstof suburban high school oblivion, we meet Anna (Liza Weil), an aspiringpainter who can’t wait to get out. She wants to go to New York and get ascholarship to Cooper Union. She wants to lose her virginity. She wantsto go crazy and have adventures and live moments that will make her anadult, an artist, a woman. And she wants it now.

indieWIRE: Why did you choose to set your film in the early 80’s and howdid you recreate it?

Susan Skoog: I set it there because that’s when I was in high school,and it’s sort of fun to go back. We had no money, so people were like,“you can’t do a period piece.” But in actuality you can get clothes fromthe Salvation Army and from used clothing stores for virtually nothing.And then we put ads in the paper for people to donate old clothes, and wehad a whole house full of costumes, wardrobe. And we did the same withthe set pieces. It was all old stuff that people had in their basements.From the 80’s it’s still around, and it’s in decent condition andnobody wants it, so we’d get it for free.

iW: What was the budget?

Skoog: We shot it for $115,000 in cash, but I had $30,000 on my creditcards, and we had $15,000 in unpaid bills. Well, about $180,000 toshoot. By the end of the day, when you add in the finishing funds thatwe got and the blow-up, and then the music and the deferred salaries andeverything, it’s just under a million.

iW: How is your film different from other coming of age films?

Skoog: I think it’s more realistic. That’s what I was trying to do wasmake a more realistic look at high school, at the underbelly of whatgoes on in high school, as opposed to “Pretty in Pink.” Not everyonegets the guy with the Corvette who rolls up and saves your life. We’renot all prom queens. Most of us fall between the cracks of what we’veseen in most coming of age films. I felt like I hadn’t seen in film whatI saw when I was a teenager. And especially from a female perspective. Ifelt like there hadn’t been a film that really nailed what it was liketo be a suburban girl growing up in this country.

iW: Your film appeals to audiences of all ages, not just sixteen yearold girls, even though it’s about high school. How do you think itaccomplishes that?

Skoog: I think that being an adolescent, there are certain things thatnever change. Like your parents are usually the enemy when you’re ateenager. I think that portal from adolescence to adulthood is ripe withstrife. It’s a very turbulent time, and it’s always been that way, from“A Rebel Without a Cause” to “Romeo and Juliet.” It’s part of being ateenager. Some things just never change.

iW: How did you choose to shoot in Wheeling, W. Virginia?

Skoog: We were going to shoot in Jersey. But it was funny — Kevin Smithwas shooting “Chasing Amy.” He lives in Red Bank, which is where I grewup, and I was going to shoot in Red Bank. My mom kept sending menewspaper articles saying, “Local town won’t let Kevin Smith-ClerksGuy-Shoot Film.” And I thought — if they won’t let HIM shoot, they’renot going to let ME shoot. So then one of my producers was from Wheelingand said, “no one’s ever shot in Wheeling. We should go there.”

So, we went down there, and it looked like New Jersey. It actuallylooked more like my town did back in the early 80’s, because thereweren’t as many strip malls. There wasn’t Banana Republic. And also thetown was really nice and helpful. The only location we paid for wasCooper Union. We got all the locations for free. They were people’shomes or houses that were on the market that realtors would let us usefor free. Also we did a fair amount of press while we were there, and wewere saying in one of the articles how we needed clothing and we neededa van, and this woman who owned a bicycle shop called us up and said, “Ihave an extra van, and if you guys want to use it…” It was amazing.There was a college nearby where we shot the school stuff, and there wasan abandoned dorm, and that’s where we all lived. That’s why we wereable to do it for so little. There were sort of magical things thathappened all along the way. We thought we were going to get crew fromPittsburgh, which is an hour from there, but it turned out that the crewin Pittsburgh did commercials and big features and were like, “we’re notgoing to do an independent film.” We were put into panic, but then thisairline popped up with New York to Pittsburgh $29 round trip! We gotcrew in New York and flew them all down, and it was actually cheaperthan driving.

iW: What was it like shooting on Super 16. Did you plan to blow it upfrom the beginning?

Skoog: We were shooting on Super 16, and we had a lab in Pittsburgh whohad agreed to do a half deferred situation with us. We also madearrangements with him where if we were not able to get finishing funds,he would do a blow-down to 16mm. So we would at least have a print toshow at festivals. Fortunately, we got finishing funds and were able togo right to a 35 blow-up. Irwin Young of DuArt and Circle Films out ofWashington DC came in as executive producers and brought us money tofinish the film. DuArt obviously got us DuArt services.

My first D.P., Michael Barrow (“Heavy“, “Sunday“), sent the script toCircle. He had done “Caught” with them, and they called right when westarting to shoot and said they liked the script and they might come upand see dailies. We didn’t quite believe them. Ellen, our producer, wason the phone with them a lot during the shoot, and they were reallyhelpful. This guy George Pelecanos was really helpful just talking usthrough the shoot. They never did come see dailies then, but we went andmet them right when we were done shooting. I edited together fivescenes, and we drove down there thinking we’re eventually going to haveto do these meetings. So we’ll go down and we’ll try it out on themfirst. George said, “if nothing else, you’ll get a nice lunch out ofit.” So, we showed them the scenes and they said, “Whoa, this is good.”They took us to this really fancy restaurant. We had lost so muchweight. We were so pale. We’d just finished shooting and were a wreck.They really liked what they saw and said they were interested in comingin with finishing funds, and they got Irwin involved, because they haddone “Caught” with him, and Irwin and Ted Pedas had been friends forlike fifty years. It was really amazing.

iW: You had two different D.P.’s. Could you talk about how you workedwith them?

Skoog: Michael Barrow was the first D.P. and he was doing another job atthe time, so he wasn’t really able to prep. He came down around two daysbefore we started shooting. I had the two main actors down there and I’drehearsed them in the spaces, so I had a very detailed shot list. WhenMichael came, we did a walk-through with the actors in front of him andI told him what I was thinking. And he’d say, “how about this?” and we’dcome up with the best way to shoot that scene.

Unfortunately, about half way through he had a really terrible familyemergency and had to leave. This amazing sort of magical thing saved us— our production designer, was friends with Michael Mayers, the otherD.P. (“Spanking the Monkey“). He had read the script earlier in thesummer and had said, “oh, this is great. I wish I had found this.” So,she goes, “he loves the script. Let me call him.” He had no prep at all.We didn’t even know what scene we were doing, so in a way it was areally good exercise for me. They’re both incredibly differentpersonalities, but the thing that they share is that their main focus isstory and not just shooting a pretty picture or a cool move. For both ofthem, story is absolutely primary and making sure the story gets toldthrough the eyes of these characters. They also never shared a location.

Mike Mayers showed up right before switching over to nights, and he did allthe nightexteriors, and they never were in the same location. They never had tolight each other’s locations. It was funny. Mike Mayers was looking atMichael Barrow’s work so he could try to match it, and he said, “shit.This is good. I’ve got my work cut out for me.”

iW: You’ve written about a time when there were no rules, especially inregards to sex. People were not ashamed or afraid of sex. What was itlike to go back there?

Skoog: Part of why I set the film in the early 80’s was because I wantedto deal with teenage sexuality and female sexuality at that age withouthaving to deal with AIDS. I really imagine it’s very different for kidsnow because of AIDS. And I didn’t really want to deal with AIDS. Eventhough it’s an important issue, it isn’t what I wanted to deal with.

iW: What statement were you trying to make with the film?

Skoog: The main thrust was that when you don’t get what you want, youget what you need. (laughs) When things don’t work out, there’s always aPlan B, but you have to come up with a Plan B. And I think it’s hardwhen you’re young to even know that there is a Plan B. You could find aPlan B or just go- “whoa, Plan A didn’t work. I quit!” right away. Ithink that’s also the thing with girls. Boys tend to blame theircircumstances and the world outside them, whereas girls tend to blamethemselves and quit. Girls quit much quicker and easier, and I thinkthat hadn’t been dealt with in film yet. Mostly, I think life is not abowl of cherries for everyone, and not everyone has that cute guy in aCorvette. Cinderella doesn’t exist, and no one’s going to save you fromyourself. Not all of us get scholarships or can get out of oursurroundings easily, so we have to figure out our own way and plowthrough and keep going.